Sister Christa Petty (FSD), Election Chair of Local 3315 has mailed a notice of the upcoming election to all local members at the addresses on file with Council 31.  Here is an excerpt from the notice:

President
Vice President
Treasurer
Secretary
3 Executives at Large
1 Trustee
The nomination meeting will be held in the 7th floor library of the Public Defender’s Office at 26th and California at  4:00 pm on April 14, 2011. Anyone may nominate and the nominee does not have to be in attendance.  The election chair will contact the nominee to determine whether he or she wishes to run for the office.  The general election will be held on May 5, 2011 from 9:30 am to 4:00 pm at each worksite where it is feasible to hold the election.  If any race results in no nominee receiving at least 50% of the vote, a runoff election between the nominees with the two highest vote totals will be held on May 19, 2011, from 9:30 am to 4:00 pm at those same worksites.

No one will be permitted to vote by proxy.  Each member must be present in person to vote.

If you have any questions, please contact Christa Petty, the election chair, at (312)603-8326.

Cook County employees vote on furloughs

AFSCME held worksite meetings throughout Cook County today for county employees who are members of 11 different AFSCME local unions. AFSCME members at these meetings reviewed and voted on county board president Toni Preckwinkle’s proposal to rescind threatened layoffs if county employees agree to 10 unpaid furlough days before November 30, 2011.

The members of six AFSCME local unions voted to accept the furlough proposal. The county is expected to rescind all 294 layoffs scheduled for members of these local unions.

Five local unions voted to reject it. Of these, one faced no layoffs and three could not avert layoffs by agreeing to furloughs. Only one local union that could have averted layoffs by accepting furloughs did not do so.

“Today’s decision was an extremely difficult one for our members. They had a right to make it for themselves,” AFSCME executive director Henry Bayer said. “Taking unpaid furloughs means agreeing to a pay cut that many county workers can ill afford, while those laid off would face unemployment in terrible economic times. Both layoffs and furloughs reduce the quality of public services for residents who rely on county government.”

The six AFSCME local unions voting to accept the furlough proposal include employees in the office of the state’s attorney (which faced 98 layoffs) and the assessor (48 layoffs), investigators who work for the public defender or medical examiner and juvenile detention caseworkers (42 layoffs), support staff of the public defender and the chief judge (66 layoffs), juvenile probation employees (29 layoffs), and employees in the office of the public guardian (11 layoffs).

The furlough proposal was rejected by AFSCME members at Provident Hospital, Oak Forest Hospital, and in county public health clinics. President Preckwinkle stated that furloughs could not prevent scheduled layoffs in these locals caused by “restructuring” of the county health system.

Attorneys in the office of the public defender faced no layoffs and rejected the furlough proposal. Adult probation employees also voted to reject furloughs. A total of 40 layoffs are scheduled in this office.

Sisters and Brothers,

The bargaining committee had hoped to negotiate a complete package to vote on, which would have included a new contract and the County’s furlough day proposal.  Unfortunately, the County continues to stall meaningful contract negotiations.  Therefore, the vote tomorrow will only concern furlough days, and not a new contract.

Here are the basics of the County’s furlough proposal that will be voted on tomorrow, Thursday, March 10:

• Employees would take either 10 furlough days or 5 furlough days and 5 shutdown days (April 22, May 27, July 1, September 2, November 25), and the County would decide whether it would proceed with just furloughs or furloughs + shutdown days.
• The furlough days or shutdown days would not affect vacation accrual, and would not affect pension accrual if employees follow forthcoming guidelines on how to avoid pension consequences.
• The furlough days would have to be taken by November 30, 2011.
• In exchange for furlough days, the County would agree not to layoff any employees until November 30, 2011, unless the County “in its sole discretion, determines that it must lay off Employees to maintain a balanced budget during the term of this Memorandum of Understanding. . .”

The terms of this proposal were not finalized until 8:00pm this evening, as AFSCME continued throughout the day to negotiate better terms.  The County rejected numerous AFSCMEproposals on furlough days, including a proposal spearheaded by our local, to guarantee no layoffs through November 30, 2012.  For those interested, the complete furlough proposal will be available at each voting site for review prior to voting.  We also will make every effort to send it to you in an attachment to an email once we obtain it electronically on Thursday morning.

The bargaining committee will meet with the County again on March 18^th to continue attempts to secure a new contract.

In conclusion, I want to remind you that our sister locals (investigators and support staff) face drastic numbers of layoffs. Whatever decision you make, please try to be respectful to people who do not share your point of view.  Not only will layoffs mean that our work as attorneys will be significantly hampered, layoffs will also mean that life changing events will take place for many of our co-workers.  We all know how hard it is to make a living these days and it will be very difficult to see our co-workers laid off onto the street. So, it should not be difficult for us to empathize with their plight.  Some of you know exactly what it means to be laid off because you experienced it first hand four years ago.  I guess all that I am asking is that when you vote, you vote not only with your intellect and mind, but your heart as well.  Solidarity is a principle that should be in our hearts and minds.

In Solidarity,
K. S. Galhotra
President
AFSCME Local 3315
The Cook County Public Defenders Association

Vote on March 10 – The first round of layoffs in Cook County offices is now scheduled for March 11. In order to ensure that all AFSCME members have the opportunity to vote directly on whether to accept the County Board and President P’s furlough day plan to prevent layoffs from going forward, AFSCME is planning to hold a membership vote at worksites throughout the County on Thursday, March 10. If a tentative agreement for a new contract is reached early next week, the ratification vote for the contract will be held at the same time.

Yesterday, contract negotiations continued with the county.  We were not surprised with the offer of furlough days to mitigate layoffs until the end of the fiscal year.  At the public hearings during the last two weeks, it was clear that the furlough idea was the panacea for our fiscal crisis according to some of the Commissioners.  We did not respond warmly to this proposal because it provides no protection to the membership beginning 12/1/2011 and is most certainly a slippery slope.  Stay updated on news regarding this topic by signing up for our email bursts (flash messages) by emailing board@cookcountypd.org.  Sorry, members only and you must send us your personal email, not county email address.

Everyone should remember that the county itself projected back in the fall of 2009 that the county would have a revenue shortfall of $200 million due to the roll back of the half penny sales tax introduced by the Stroger administration.  My question is:  Whatever happened to the claim by many Commissioners that revenues would INCREASE when the “highest sales tax in the country” was lowered?  Where’s the money now?  How does the Civic Federation address that?  I bet they think revenues will not increase till the whole penny is gone.  Sure.

On another very important note, I want to thank all the brothers and sisters who showed their support for collective bargaining by traveling to Wisconsin last weekend.  Governor Walker has truly touched a nerve and citizens have shown up by the thousands to protest his full scale assault on the right to collectively bargain.  In addition, your executive board is sending financial support to the affected locals so they can continue to fight the good fight.  If you would like to add to our contribution, click here.

In Solidarity,

K. S. Galhotra

For the first time in nearly ten years, the Jack Carey Memorial Scholarship will host a fundraiser at a basketball game.   The Bulls are red hot and all players are now healthy and ready to put the Bulls in contention of winning a, dare we say it?, a Championship!  The Wizards will be in town on MARCH 15, 2011 at the United Center and the Scholarship board has its hands on 50 tickets in section 308.  So please support the three law clerks who are selected each year to receive the $2500 award from the fund by purchasing your ticket today.  Call Mark Douglass at 26th St or K.S. Galhotra at  773 674-6989 to reserve your ticket, or just send a check made out to The Jack Carey Memorial Scholarship through interoffice mail.  Tickets are $50 each.

Good evening Chairman Daley and commissioners. My name is Kulmeet Galhotra. I am an assistant public defender in Cook County and President of AFSCME Local 3315, the union that represents the front-line public defenders in Cook County.

I am here to tell you that President Preckwinkle’s proposed budget, which will result in the layoffs of 63 attorneys, and half of our investigators and support staff, is nothing more than a shell game that is going to cost the citizens of Cook County far more than it will ever save.

The Public Defender’s office plays a vital role in the administration of justice in this county. We represent those folks who cannot afford to hire an attorney in misdemeanors, preliminary hearings, bond court, felonies, homicides, child protection, juvenile justice, appeals, post conviction and traffic court in Chicago and suburban Cook County. The responsibility for providing effective assistance of counsel, to the accused poor, rests with the county and ultimately, with you the commissioners.

Despite caseloads that are still in excess of ABA guidelines, the Public Defender’s Office continues to provide its clients with the finest legal representation. A study last year of 2850 criminal cases in Cook County by researchers from the University of Texas concluded that public defenders get results that are just as good as their private counterparts. And if you consider the number of cases our office handles with the amount of money that we were funded in 2010, you find that our office is more efficient than the public defender systems in Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Some states, like Massachusetts are actually considering creating a public defender system and getting rid of their private attorney appointment system. Why? Because public defender systems are cost-effective. But cuts to our office with the current budget proposal will lead to fewer public defenders and the County will wind up paying private attorneys more money to do our jobs.

In addition, cutting the Public Defender’s budget by 10% will translate into increasing the time it will take us to dispose cases, which will have an incremental effect on the costs of housing pretrial detainees at Cook County Jail. And then there is always the specter of civil actions brought against the County by defendants who had to wait too long to have their case heard or had overworked public defenders.

Cook county may be required by law to balance its budget by the end of February, but the Constitution requires Cook County to pay for lawyers for poor people. In the long run, President Preckwinkle’s budget would increase costs to the taxpayers, while ignoring our Constitution’s sacred promise of “equal justice for all.”

Sisters and Brothers:

After meeting with management  today, here is the latest information on the budget crisis:

For those of you who read the budget proposal and did not notice any job cuts, you are not alone.  However, if you look closely at page M-11, you will see an entry for Turnover Adjustment that amounts to $5,806,924.  This represents the nearly six million dollars which President P plans on cutting from our 2011 budget.  President P does not have the authority to tell the Public Defender where to make those cuts.  Therefore, while the budget document does not show the actual staffing cuts, Judge Cunningham must nonetheless shave almost six million dollars from the budget.  In a meeting with Judge Cunningham’s representatives today (2/4/2011), his representatives informed the Local that the six million dollar budget hole will be filled in part by the elimination of 68 bargaining unit attorney positions, of which 5 are vacancies.  That means 63 bargaining unit public defenders laid off.

But the fight has just begun.  President P’s Budget must still face a vote before the County Board.  Nine votes are needed for passage.  That is why your calls, letters, emails, and attendance at budget hearings is essential to maintaining the current staffing levels in our office.  There is no time to waste.  No doubt, it will be an uphill battle.  But we’ve done it before and we can do it again.

Stay updated by checking your emails daily.

In Solidarity,

K. S. Galhotra

President

Listed below are the newly revised hearing dates, times and locations for the budget hearings members should attend.  You will notice that the Markham and Maywood dates are swapped in this revised schedule.  If you are planning on attending, please send and email to board@cookcountypd.org

Wednesday, February 9, 2011
6:30 PM
Fourth District Courthouse
1500 South Maybrook Drive
Courtroom 106
Maywood, IL

Thursday, February 10, 2011
6:30 PM
Second District Courthouse
5600 Old Orchard Road
Conference Room 201
Skokie, IL

Tuesday, February 15, 2011
6:30 PM
Sixth District Courthouse
16501 South Kedzie Parkway
Markham, IL